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Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga approaches art as a social practice that seeks to establish dialogue in public spaces. Having been born of immigrant parents and grown up between Nicaragua and San Francisco, a strong awareness of inequality and discrimination was established at an early age. Themes such as immigration, discrimination, gentrification and the effects of globalization extend from highly subjective experiences and observations into works that tactfully engage others through populist metaphors while maintaining critical perspectives. Over the past several years, Ricardo has established a practice based in research and investigation leading to the final presentation. This is a practice that utilizes whatever media possible to present the content in a manner that may generate interaction and discussion by others.

Miranda-Zúñiga was the recipient of one of five Program Excellence Scholarships for the ARAC 2006 workshop taught by Camille Utterback, "Responding to Gestures and Bodies: Understanding Human Movement in Interactive Art".

In Vagamundo, Miranda-Zuniga employ's the video game format in order to construct social commentary. Based on interviews as well as the experience of his parents, the video game Vagamundo depicts the plight of new immigrants from Latin America to the United States. The game, that is a computer, monitor and joystick are placed within a hand built cart, resembling a small ice cream cart. The use of the hand built ice cream cart establishes a concrete association with the thousands of paleteros found in major U.S. cities pushing their carts and selling various flavors of crushed ice for a dollar. Through the mobile cart presented on street corners, pedestrians are invited to play the video game. The game is composed of three levels:

El Borracho, representing a "Culture of Poverty"

The Green Grocer Bagger representing a "Culture of Assimilation"

The Head Waiter represents a "Culture of Prosperity"

Once the player has beat the game, s/he is offered the choice to discriminate against new immigrants or two help new immigrants. Vagamundo places the player in the role of a new immigrant to New York City, an experience that may cause one to consider what life is like for others.